Thus far, in the medical field and the industrial field, an endoscope apparatus that uses an imaging element to image the interior of an object to be observed such as a person or a machine structure to observe the interior of the object to be observed has been known (e.g. see Patent Literature 1).
The endoscope apparatus described in Patent Literature 1 includes an endoscope that includes a camera head including an imaging element and a transmission cable electrically connected to the camera head and a control apparatus that controls the operation of the camera head via the transmission cable.
In an endoscope apparatus like the above, an initialization operation like below is performed at the start-up of the endoscope apparatus.
FIG. 4 is a timing chart for describing the initialization operation of a conventional endoscope apparatus. Specifically, in FIG. 4, the initialization operation of the control apparatus is illustrated in the top, the initialization operation of the camera head is illustrated in the middle, and the state of the endoscope apparatus is illustrated in the bottom.
First, when the power switch in the control apparatus is set to ON (timing T1′ shown in FIG. 4), a power supply voltage is supplied from the power supply unit in the control apparatus to each device in the control apparatus, and the control apparatus starts the initialization of the control apparatus itself.
After the start of the initialization of the control apparatus, the control apparatus supplies the camera head with electric power necessary for the driving of the camera head via the transmission cable (timing T2′ shown in FIG. 4).
When the initialization of the control apparatus is completed (timing T3′ shown in FIG. 4), the control apparatus starts the initialization of the camera head. Then, the control apparatus enters and remains in the standby state until the initialization of the camera head is completed.
When the initialization of the camera head is completed (timing T4′ shown in FIG. 4), the control apparatus and the camera head enter the steady state. That is, the endoscope apparatus enters the steady state (a state in which the interior of the object to be observed can be observed) at this timing T4′.